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Tuesday, November 20, 2012

The singer in the stunning picture above is called Queen of Hearts. She's a new artist you're bound to like -- as long as you share my taste in kooky female pop stars with practically no hope of mainstream success (cf Marina and the Diamonds, Lykke Li, Siobhan Donaghy, and the rest).

Here are the key facts.

:: Daily Express readers stand down: She is not named after Princess Diana.

:: Instead, the name "came about because I write songs about love – finding it, losing it, betrayal, etcetera," as she told Teez FM.

:: "I've always admired strong women," she added in an interview with XO Magazine. "I think it's such a sexy quality, so I wanted a name that encapsulated that".

:: The singer lives in posho West London suburb Chiswick, home to Ant and Dec, Colin Firth and Richard Briers (ask your dad).

:: I once saw Moira Stewart in the Chiswick branch of Sainsbury's.

:: She was buying a broccoli.

:: Queen of Hearts would like it to be known that her favourite attire is "statement jewellery, high necklines, leather and killer heels".

:: Speaking to Glam UK, she described her music as "electro-pop with an emotional twist".

:: "They are dance floor tunes but maybe you could shed a tear at the same time!" she continued.

:: Is the exclamation mark in that quote really necessary? It makes her sound deranged, like she's shouting "MAYBE YOU COULD SHED A TEAR" at the top of her voice with a demented grin while she threatens to disembowel your cat with a spoon made of noodles.

:: "If you buy my album, you have to love pop, because that's really what I'm all about," she professes.

:: To prove it, she's been recording with Stuart "I made Madonna's last decent album" Price.

:: However, he has nothing to do with her new single, Warrior.

:: It's still pretty good, though. A luscious, stylish pop gem with a floaty video filmed on a beach.

Crucially, as with all the best songs, it works just as well in stripped-back acoustic form as it does in the bells-and-whistles electropop version. Here's Queen Of Hearts (we don't know her real name, and nor should we) performing it on BBC Local Radio last week.

Warrior is out in December. Queen Of Hearts has a social media presence on Twitter and Tumblr and Facebook. How modern.